The Action Committee for the Mediterranean Publishes Its Second Flagship Report “The Mediterranean Through Work: A Partnership for the Future”
The Action Committee for the Mediterranean (ACM) has released its 2026 flagship report, La Méditerranée par le travail: un partenariat pour l’avenir, authored by Hakim El Karoui and François Gaüzère-Mazauric.
The report sets out the demographic case for a new model of Euro-Mediterranean cooperation built on labour mobility. As European countries face accelerating population decline and shrinking workforces, North African economies are producing a growing, increasingly qualified generation of graduates confronted with structural unemployment and brain drain. Left unaddressed, the report argues, this divergence will deepen labour shortages in the North and fuel skills flight and instability in the South.
Drawing on sector-by-sector analysis from construction and hospitality to healthcare, elder care, IT and professional services the report maps where labour shortages are most acute and where Southern talent is already filling the gap. It also examines the cost of brain drain for Southern states and highlights existing private- and public-sector initiatives already building bridges between the two shores.
The report’s central proposal is an action plan for what we call a Mediterranean “migratory ECSC” echoing the Coal and Steel Community that launched European integration built this time around the circulation of human capital: coordinated skills mapping, structured co-training partnerships between Northern and Southern institutions, streamlined pathways from study to work, and innovative financing tools such as debt-for-training swaps.